Award-Winning Wildlife Water Garden for people, climate & nature
Client:
The Association for Professional Landscapers (APL)
Show:
Gardener’s World Live 2025
Completed:
June 2025
Image Copyright:
Stephen Studd Photography
Celebrating Professional Collaboration
The Studio collaborated with Design It Landscapes and the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL) for BBC Gardeners’ World Live 2025. Together, they created the Where There’s Water, There’s Life show garden – a wildlife water garden. The garden received a Platinum Award. It also won Best Show Garden and Best Construction.
This show garden celebrated the APL’s 30th Anniversary and the collaboration between professional garden designers and professional landscape contractors.
A wildlife water garden for people
The Where There’s Water, There’s Life garden highlights the vital connection between water, plants, people, and nature. It is a wildlife garden, a climate garden and a garden for people. It’s the ultimate wildlife water garden.
Slowing the flow
The wildlife water garden showcases innovative techniques that slow water flow and improve water management. These approaches conserve water, support wildlife, and help reduce flooding in towns and cities.
A playful rill carries rainwater from the pergola’s green roof to the pond. It flows past the deck, creating soothing sounds and visual interest. It also offers a place for play. Importantly, the rill also captures rainwater after heavy rainfall events.
The pond naturally overflows into a rain garden where the excess water soak into the soil. Permeable surfaces throughout the garden allow water to soak into the ground below.
Plants for wildlife and people
The planting scheme provides habitat for wildlife including freshwater pond species. Together, the planting creates a thriving oasis for nature.
A shaded seating area offers a peaceful place to relax and enjoy the pond’s tranquil beauty.
By combining beauty with sustainability, the garden demonstrates the value of thoughtful design. It enhances outdoor spaces and adds resilience in the face of a rapidly changing climate. It also supports biodiversity and strengthens our connection with the natural world.
Where there’s water, there’s life – APL 30th Anniversary garden at BBC Gardeners World Live 2025
The premise of our Association of Professional Landscapers 30th Anniversary garden is to embrace water – to keep it within the garden because water is needed for all life. The garden also creates a complex habitat for wildlife and for people too.
Water is life, gardens for wildlife
When it rains, water landing on the pergola green roof is captured and slowed by the plants roots before it is channeled into a central gutter and down the rain chain into a decorative water storage unit, which can hold 300L of water. When this overflows, water passes via a rill into an attenuation pool in front of the deck, which can hold a further 500L of water. We are seeing 1 in 100 year rain events far more frequently with climate change. The volume of water that would hit the pergola roof during such an event (+20% increase for climate change) is around 800L. The garden is designed to accommodate an additional 1200L of water following such an event.
When the attenuation pool overflows, the water trickles into the wildlife pond. The rain garden, planted with plants that do not mind sitting in water for 24 hours, is at the second lowest pond of the garden (the pond the lowest) and allows the volume of the pond to ebb and flow following deluges of rain.
Many wildlife species live in freshwater for all or part of their lifecycle, so ponds are extremely important habitat within gardens. The topography of the garden undulates allowing for water to be contained in the garden whilst creating areas for plants and wildlife that prefer drier conditions. The planting is also layered both beneath the ground (roots) and above the ground with extensive ground cover and layered planting – both good for helping water to infiltrate the soil and for wildlife that require a complex habitat.
Whilst plants are good for wildlife habitat, some species of bee, for example, need bare soil for nesting and require different substrate types for nesting. In the garden, we included dead wood structures and log piles, bare soil in different aspects (full sun and partial shade) and bare sand on the pergola roof. We also included bee posts from niche environmental for solitary bees to nest. These offer an opportunity to grow populations of solitary bees, such as red mason bees, whilst natural holes within dead wood are being established in a garden.
Gardens for people
Last but not least, this garden is for people too. The raised walkway leads you across the pond, where you can stop and pause to watch wildlife come and go (within a day of the pond being planted, Damselflies had moved in, mated and laid their eggs on an Alissima sp. plant). The walkway leads playfully across the attenuation pool and onto a deck that offers a place to sit on the bespoke Field and Thorn woodcraft chairs with accompanying table and enjoy the garden under dappled shade from the sun. A boulder on the other diagonal of the garden offers an alternative view of the garden, whilst sitting on a hot day on the boardwalk, you can cool your feet in the pond whilst socialising with friends or family. The garden offers an immersive experience whilst having a positive effect on wildlife, water and the environment in general.
Materials:
We used timber for the pergola painted in Brouns & Co. Linseed Oil paint (Chatsworth Blue), exterior bamboo (Moso Bamboo, supplied by Gripsure) for the deck and board walk, the Scottish boulders and rocks were loaned to us from CEDstone, whilst the reclaimed whin kerbstones, which we upcycled -making something contemporary from something old, were purchased from CEDstone.
Plants:
The majority of the trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses and ferns were on loan from JA Jones Ltd
The mixed native hedge was loaned from Elevedon Instant Hedges
Finally the garden was built by the wonderful team at Design it Landscapes, lead by Dan Ryan, with other APL accredited landscape teams pitching in: Adscape Limited, B7 Limted, Harrison Landscapes, Habitat Landscapes, and Arlington Landscapes
Roger Platt, the chair of the show garden assessment panel said “In every area, this garden excels. The design, construction, landscaping and planting are of a very high standard and the garden has a lovely ambience. It demonstrates water collection and the green roof pergola is both imaginative and practical. There were some real moments of joy for the assessors as we discovered examples of the team’s attention to detail. I’m thrilled that visitors will see an exceptional garden which showcases the standards and skills that the APL demands of its member companies.” Mark Gregory, one of the judging panel also added “a feeling you cannot describe when you walk onto a magical space…. the detailing was sublime”.
